Fix Mail Memory Leak on Sequoia

The Mail app in macOS Sequoia can occasionally balloon in memory usage, consuming 10GB+ of RAM and slowing down your system.

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The Symptom

Activity Monitor shows Mail or MailPersistence using an absurd amount of "Memory," and the system feels sluggish.

The Fix

1. Disable AI Smart Categorization

The new AI sorting features are often the cause of the leak.

Go to Mail > Settings > Viewing.

Uncheck "Enable Smart Categorization."

1. Rebuild the Envelope Index

Force Mail to re-index your messages without downloading them again:

Quit Mail. In Terminal, run:

rm -rf ~/Library/Mail/V10/MailData/Envelope\ Index*

(Note: Replace V10 with your current version folder, usually the highest number.)

1. Limit Attachment Downloads

Go to Mail > Settings > Accounts > [Your Account] > Account Information.

Set "Download Attachments" to Recent or None.

Pro Tip

If Mail is completely frozen, use Command+Option+Esc to Force Quit before running the Terminal commands.